Netflix Takes a Gamble on 8 Warner Bros. TV Shows

Netflix subscribers will soon be able to inhale an entire season of Revolution in one sitting thanks to a new deal that yokes Warner Bros. Television shows to Netflix, allowing the service to stream eight 2012-2013 series a few months after their original air dates, including Fox series Fringe and The Following, USA Network miniseries Political Animals and A&E western Longmire.

Also added to the Netflix menu: old episodes of WB products like Chuck, Fringe and The West Wing, and the canceled ABC thriller 666 Park Avenue.

Monday’s deal marks the latest in a flurry of intriguing moves from the Los Gatos, California-based outfit. Just a few months ago, Netflix profits plummeted after the subscription service annoyed customers by hiking monthly rates for snail mail DVD delivery and streaming services.

Netflix reversed the downward momentum in December when it snagged licensing rights to Disney product from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Pixar Animation Studios and DisneyNature. That deal begins in 2016.

And, like TV-streaming rival Hulu, co-owned by Disney, NBC Universal and NewsCorp, Netflix is starting to produce its own original content ranging from Kevin Spacey political drama House of Cards and horror auteur Eli Roth’s Hemlock Grove to a drool-worthy rebirth of cult comedy Arrested Development.

What does the deal mean for the viewer? Warner Bros. Television Group president Bruce Rosenblum said in a statement that Netflix represents one more option for fans of subscription video on demand. “SVOD has become an important window for our serialized dramas, allowing viewers a chance to discover a series that before might have been intimidating to tune into mid-run.”

So: more opportunities for binge-viewing Netflix subscribers to wolf down entire seasons of shows over a weekend.

The Netflix TV roster already includes The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, The Killing and other series that become available for a $7.95 monthly fee a few months after their initial run. Tony Wible, an analyst at Janney Capital Markets, says the Warner Bros. deal represents a Netflix effort to draw more subscribers by fattening up its content offerings. “For Netflix to get to where they want to be, they kind of have to be all things to all people,” he told Wired. “This is one element.”

Will Netflix, facing competition from Hulu, Amazon Plus and other sites, rope in enough new subscribers to justify its investment in the Warner Bros. slate?

“That’s the big risk in this story,” Wible observes. “Netflix spends money with the hope that it will have a certain subscriber base in the future. If it doesn’t have that subscriber base, it will struggle to make those payments.”